Hope The Elder (195?-2020)
The Hopes (Jr. and Sr.) lost their father a week or so ago. St. Michael's is just getting word of it now since the family relocated to Arizona nearly ten years ago. You may remember the older brother as part of that remarkable team of Sunday School juniors and seniors, "Hope and Crosby" who caught my attention every time they appeared at the late morning Sunday Mass. I have a vague memory of them even being in a youth choir of some sort.
But, it wasn't their singing that drew me toward them. It was their friendship. They so obviously liked each other and yet were about as different from each other as - their namesakes, the movie duo of the 1940s.
Hope Sr., the older of the brothers, was full of testosterone. Muscular, a bit of a jock. Suspicious of authority, he always addressed me as "sir" and I never knew if he was being genuinely respectful or making a reference to "To Sir With Love", the Sidney Poitier movie.
Crosby, for his part, looked young for his age. People tend to forget that he was actually rather small through most of high school. Hope was about a head taller than him (now, I think it is the other way around) and seemed the more worldly of the two. The kind of guy you could depend on to have a package of condoms on him at all times.
Crosby was also the more friendly individual. He had Bing's charcteristics from an early age. And, he was smart. There was never any competition between the two high schoolers in the realm of curiosity and the ability to turn that into conversation.
I've only spotted the two Hope brothers a few times since they left New York. But, my gut feeling is that of those three Sunday School boys, it was Crosby who changed the most while away at college.
In any event, it was sad when their mother died. It has to be nearly fifteen years now. She was young and had a great calling as a music teacher. Her ashes rest in the Columbarium.
Hope The Elder was the quietest member of the whole family.
But, it wasn't their singing that drew me toward them. It was their friendship. They so obviously liked each other and yet were about as different from each other as - their namesakes, the movie duo of the 1940s.
Hope Sr., the older of the brothers, was full of testosterone. Muscular, a bit of a jock. Suspicious of authority, he always addressed me as "sir" and I never knew if he was being genuinely respectful or making a reference to "To Sir With Love", the Sidney Poitier movie.
Crosby, for his part, looked young for his age. People tend to forget that he was actually rather small through most of high school. Hope was about a head taller than him (now, I think it is the other way around) and seemed the more worldly of the two. The kind of guy you could depend on to have a package of condoms on him at all times.
Crosby was also the more friendly individual. He had Bing's charcteristics from an early age. And, he was smart. There was never any competition between the two high schoolers in the realm of curiosity and the ability to turn that into conversation.
I've only spotted the two Hope brothers a few times since they left New York. But, my gut feeling is that of those three Sunday School boys, it was Crosby who changed the most while away at college.
In any event, it was sad when their mother died. It has to be nearly fifteen years now. She was young and had a great calling as a music teacher. Her ashes rest in the Columbarium.
Hope The Elder was the quietest member of the whole family.